Book Review: Eleventh Hour – Graeme Base November 20, 2009
Posted by realitybypass in Book Review, Children Books.1 comment so far
Sounds like the books from October have been received and well loved. Thanks again to everyone who entered and stay tuned for Christmas give aways. 
Today’s Book Review comes from my local book club last night. Due to busy holidays we decided to share our favorite picture books and drink hot chocolate. Really not a bad way to spend the evening.
One of the most fascinating books which was talked about was Graeme Base’s Eleventh Hour. This is a book with absolutely beautiful illustrations which tells the story of Horace the Elephant who is celebrating his eleventh birthday on the eleventh day of November. He invites eleven friends to come and play games and have a feast at 11 o’clock. Are we sensing a theme here? However the feast is stolen just before eating time and now you need to figure out who did it. There are plenty of clues through the book and ever illustration includes codes and cryptograms. The book is absolutely fascinating to look at and try to solve and if you need a little help there is a sealed portion in the back which gives you instructions for where to start looking.
Great for both kids and grownups. I think it may have to be a Christmas pressie at my house this year.
Genre: Picture Book
Age: 8+ for reading level, all ages will enjoy the pictures, solving all the clues may be a 12+ or with parental help.
Content: Family friendly
Overall: 5 paws
Jana
Wednesday Book Review: The Ribbajack July 15, 2009
Posted by kmcalear in Book Review, Children Books, Fantasy, Young Adult.add a comment
Genre: Short Story/Mild Fantasy/Spooky
Age: Adolescent/Young Adult
Content: mild violence, mild romance, mild scares
Overall: Buy or borrow
I really enjoyed The Ribbajack, both because Brian Jacques is one of my favorite authors and because the short stories are engaging and easy to read. Most of them have some sort of classic moral or didactic purpose to them which shows they’re classic cautionary tales with an interesting twist on them. They range from “the Ribbajack”, which is a cautionary tale about the danger of revenge, to “The Mystery of Huma D’Este” where a bully gets his comeuppance and ”Rosie’s Pet” where a girl only learns to behave once she becomes a werewolf. The stories touch on themes children will face from bullying, abuse, and disobeying parents. The language is very regional British, which may give trouble to some readers, but the book would be a delight to read out loud. I think the tales would also be great fresh stories for any storytellers to use.
From School Library Journal
Grade 5-8-Jacques offers six original ghost stories to follow up on Seven Strange and Ghostly Tales (Putnam, 1991). The title story is more grotesque than scary, and the ghost in “A Smile and a Wave” is inexplicably evil, existing only to scare the main character into wearing her detested coat. The most satisfying selections are “Miggy Mags and the Malabar Sailor,” in which a mongoose champions a young girl against her abusive uncle, and “Rosie’s Pet,” a preadolescent werewolf love story. The heavy northern English dialect used in the tellings would work well in an audio book, but may deter some readers. While this is an acceptable addition to general collections, true fans of the scary and strange will find more satisfaction in the short-story collections by Australian writer Paul Jennings, such as Unreal! (Formac, 1992).
Farida S. Dowler, formerly at Bellevue Regional Library, WA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Wednesday Book Review: The Trickster Series May 20, 2009
Posted by kmcalear in Book Review, Book Series, Children Books, Fantasy.add a comment
Today’s review is Trickster’s Choice and Trickster’s Queen by Tamora Pierce, one of my favorite authors. Tamora Pierce’s tales always feature a young heroine who needs to come into her own as an independant woman professionally and personally and the Trickster series is no different. Aly is the daughter and niece of famous and powerful people and needs to find her own way in the world and learn to respect those who gave her the tools to find it. The book masterfully shows the growth of the young character and serves as a good heroine for teens and pre-teens. One of the strengths of the entire set of Tortall books is the clever near-medieval world created in them, with Knights and spies, pirates, monsters and Mages. Her Wild Magic series is a favorite of mine and is tattered on my shelves from many re-readings. The characters are engaging, the plot is fascinating and the series reads well. My only disagreement with it are personal, I disliked Aly’s love choice for not being three dimensional. Fans of the series will appreciate the cameos from other beloved characters that came before Aly, as they are referred to both as teachers and assist in their own ways, without overshadowing the young protagonist.
Genre: Fantasy
Age: Young Adult
Content: mild violence, mild romance
Overall: Buy or borrow
Grade 7-10-Alianne, daughter of Alanna (Alanna: The First Adventure [Random, 1989]), is ready to create her own legend. As the book opens, Aly, 16, longs to follow in her father’s footsteps as a spy, but her parents refuse to allow it. Annoyed, she sails off in her boat, only to be captured by pirates and sold into slavery, fortunately to kindly Duke Balitang. She meets Kyprioth, the Trickster, and strikes a bargain: if Aly keeps the Duke and his family safe for the summer, Kyprioth will return her to her family and persuade her parents to let her be a spy. With magic, spells, winged horses that are part human and part metal, crows that take human form (and provide a romance for Aly), brutal fighting, treason, and attempted kidnapping, this fantasy has plenty to hold readers’ attention. It also offers an interesting examination of race, as well as a look at an adolescent’s finding her independence, an especially difficult task with such a powerful mother. Aly is a strong, intelligent, and resilient feminist who stretches this fantasy to a parable of girl-power. The book at times bogs down in the sheer number of characters and relationships, and in the author’s zealous attention to descriptive details, but Pierce’s fans will enjoy it.
Connie Tyrrell Burns, Mahoney Middle School, South Portland, ME
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Child Appropriateness? March 23, 2009
Posted by kmcalear in Children Books, Critiquing.2 comments
I just saw “Coraline” this weekend and really enjoyed it; even though it definitely had it’s creepy moments. It did get me thinking, though both about Cautionary Tales and “child-approriateness.” I found some moments definitely creepy for me, particularly when Other Mother turned into some sort of half insect-like spider monster being, but she still looked like the mother. Anyway it was scary, and would probably frighten a child; but the point of the tale was to remind children to appreciate what they have and to see the truth in people, not the facades. The consequences of Coraline’s falling for the “perfect world” of Other Mother is imprisonment and she learns what happened to the other children who accepted the lies of the perfect world. I think back to the fairy tales of the past, and how many of them carried the warning of “obey your parents” or “obey the church” or you’ll run afoul of witches, demons, monsters and other worldly dangers.
If you read Chinese mythology, as well, many of their tales told to children involve wandering ghosts and vengeful spirits designed to keep children safe by presenting dark consequences for disobedience. So I suppose my question is… do we have a place for cautionary tales for children, how “scary” is appropriate and how much is too much? Should scary stories wait until children are old enough to be told “this is make believe?”
I’d love to hear your thoughts, or even your thoughts on the age-appropriateness of Coraline?
